


The Dark I Know Well

by Newtdew25



Series: Another Side, Another Story [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Character Death, Influenza, M/M, Multi, Post-Canon, Survivor Guilt, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 02:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8384089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newtdew25/pseuds/Newtdew25
Summary: More than fifteen years after the strike, New York City is a very different city. Most people are either in Europe fighting in the Great War or already dead from the influenza outbreak. In the midst of the bleakness of life, a former newsie visits the ghosts of his past.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There is a bit of fluff in here, mostly from the nostalgia that the protagonist experiences. This whole fic was inspired by the "Once Upon a December" sequence from the movie Anastasia, so I would recommend listening to a gentle instrumental version of the song while reading this.
> 
> Trigger warnings ahead for death and what can be read as a suicide. See the end notes for my explanation.
> 
> Oh, and I don't own any of these characters. They're all Disney's property and all that good stuff.

            You aren’t sure whether the chills you felt were coming from the boy in your arms or your own. It was probably both. The October air was quiet save for the occasional cough or rushed footsteps. Even the motorcade that had been repurposed into an ambulance was largely silent. That was a solemn sound, one that drowned out the loudest cries for help. At least people that shouted and cried were still alive.

            “Where are we g-goin’?” the boy asks, his voice already faint. For all your optimism, the war and the influenza outbreak had taken a lot out of you. Still, you owe it to the kid to at least try to be hopeful. After all, it’s what your family did for you before they were taken from you in a tenement fire.

            After helping him sit up on the back of the motorcade, you take off your scarf and wrap it around the boy’s neck, silently noting how the knitted fabric almost dwarfs his petite body. “These sisters, they’se gonna take care of you. But you gotta promise me that you’ll stay strong, okay?” He nodded, holding his knees close to his face. “I wanna see my parents again. Where are they?”

            _“That’s what everyone wants to know, kid,”_ you muse in your head as you look away. These days, it seems that there are always people missing. Abroad or here at home, there was a painful reminder of loved ones that were no longer present. It might have been a painting hanging on a wall, or a blanket that remains neatly folded on a bed. For some, it was a piano with keys that were gathering dust, or a rocking horse that sat motionless. It could even be a hat or pair of suspenders that were stored away in a drawer, never to be worn again.

            One of the nuns, Sister Lawrence, came over before you could give any sort of answer. “I’ll take over from here, dear. Could you please check in that building over there?” You nod and slowly stand up, doing your best to avoid the young boy’s worried eyes. Comforting others used to be your strong suit. Surely it wasn’t your age that had worn you down so much? No, it was the war effort, the epidemic, the suffocating smog in the air.

            There was so much to blame nowadays.

            You almost laughed at how pitiful the building was. Like much of this part of the city, it had largely been abandoned. Empty, lifeless, just as many of the residents once were and likely are now. The cracked concrete steps were a challenge for you to climb, with each placement of your boot simply causing the structure to give way under your feet. Perhaps in a different lifetime, you could have joked about your weight being the problem. Food wasn’t exactly easy to come by in these times; it never has been for you.

            The lobby, if you could still call it that, was surprisingly spacious, even if that could only be attributed to the fact that what was likely a counter had been reduced to mere planks of wood. You stepped around the debris cautiously as you took in the sight of the building’s interior. Above your head, you could see several floors through the holes in the ceiling. Sister Lawrence could have been right about people living here, but those people were long gone.

            But you did know them when they were here.

            And with that thought, the memories come rushing back to you, as if a clogged water pump was suddenly unblocked. You could see the building repairing itself before your eyes. The cobwebs and dust in the rafters was blown away by some phantom wind. As you stepped forward, the ruined floor was made whole again, each floorboard back where it belonged. With a gentle graze of your hand against the wall, the holes were filled up and recovered with the same wallpaper you remember seeing for much of your childhood. This was your home, as it was for many other boys who lived in this part of New York.

            As you walked towards the stairs, you could see a boy propping up his slingshot on the banister. He blew a tuft of unruly black hair out of his eyes as he adjusted the pebble in the sling he had fashioned out of an old shirt sleeve. With a final check, he let the stone fly, hitting the back of someone else’s head. “What the- Finch, watch it!” he hollered, tossing the projectile to the floor. The other boy, Finch, stuck out his tongue before retreating up the stairs. You reached out towards the grumpy kid, who flinched away before looking you over. “Well,” he chuckled as he pulled you in for a hug. “If it ain’t the prodigal son! Good to see you back, man!”

            “Thanks, Skittery,” you found yourself saying as he hurried away, the name coming out of the back of your mind, no doubt dislodged by your stirred memory. From high above, you could hear the sounds of boys laughing, talking, and shouting fill the empty, desolate rooms. With an ethereal sort of calm coming over you, you follow Finch up the stairs. The bitter autumn air gave way to soothing warmth, straight from the dog days of summer.

            The rows and clusters of bunk beds on the second floor was yet another welcome sight. You passed by two boys huddled on a bed, a set of playing cards in their hands. One of them stuffed his cards into his vest pocket as he stood up, taking a cigar out of his mouth. “I’ll be damned,” he whistled, looking up at you. “You’ve grown a fair bit, haven’t you?” Before you could reply, the kid on the bed yelped, the surprise clear out of his one visible eye. Around his waist was a pair of tan arms, no doubt belonging to the other boy grinning wickedly. With a nod, you let them get back to their game, receiving a friendly salute in reply.

            Someone was leaning out the window, staring out at the balcony. When you made your way over to the windowsill, you followed the boy’s bespectacled gaze to a smaller kid holding a broomstick. From what you could gather from what sounded like angry Italian curses and his wild gestures, he was holding a sword and fighting to defend someone’s honor. Given how much the boy beside you was blushing, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

            An excited shout draws all three of your attentions away from the mock sword fight and back into the room. Running up to you was a boy much younger than the others. He wraps his small arms around your waist and you can hardly comprehend what he’s saying from behind his scarf; his excitement was contagious and you wanted to wrap yourself up in the pure, innocent feeling. There’s one sentence you can make sense of, “They’s waitin’ for you on the roof.”

            The roof; there’s an even greater sense of home when you hear those two words. Dusks and sunrises flood your memory, hopes and dreams and plans for the future echo in your head. With a renewed sense of purpose, you made your way across the common bedroom and to the staircase, each step bursting with energy that you thought had long been drained away by worry and fear. The boys you passed didn’t seem surprised; rather, they encouraged you, egging you on with gentle teases about being too slow.

            As you climb onto the roof, the sun had already begun to set, bathing the city in a shimmering golden light. From behind the stacks of old newspapers and various potted plants, you could see two figures sitting by the edge of the balcony. Their exact words were lost in the hum of the streets below, but it was clear that they were sharing some private joke, the punch line known to them alone.

            If it had been anywhere else, you would have left in silence, knowing better than to intrude on someone else’s personal matters. But here, there was no such worry. These were your friends, your brothers, you were safe here.

            Although you were only halfway there, one of them stood up and nearly tripped over their own feet to pull you into a bear hug. You could feel his chest heaving from how much he was laughing, and you let him pick you up and bring you to their spot on the balcony. On either side of you is a face that you had pushed into the back of your head for so long. One was smudged with dirt, yet beaming with a wild grin; the other was cleaner and more reasonable, but no less loving.

            “We’ve missed you, you know.”

            “It’s been a real long time.”

            “We didn’t mean to abandon you; we didn’t have a choice.”

            “You could stay here with us, y’know.”

            “No more war, no more influenza.”

            “Free like the wind, like you could live forever.”

            The voices grow to a crescendo, the arms of the brothers you love so dearly holding you close. You look up, each of your friends gathered around you. If you had to be honest with yourself, you were tired. A lonely life, one void of friends that hadn’t been conscripted and shipped to Europe or weren’t already dead, wasn’t one worth living. The pain and disease would be soothed and disappear. You would be at home again.

            With a final smile, you close your eyes to one world and open them up to another.

///

            “Oh, my poor, poor dear,” a nun sobs as she cradles the ragged corpse of a young man. Beside her, a fellow sister holds a battered old crutch in her hands. After whispering a quiet, teary prayer, the two carry the body down the crumbling stairs, out onto the street, and onto the motorcade. They lay the young man beside a boy he had just comforted moments earlier. Although they were far too young, their suffering was now done. God had welcomed them into His eternal, loving embrace.

            There were still so many to take care of.

**Author's Note:**

> So although Crutchie would likely have not survived to 1918 due to his polio (which is apparently canon and accounts for his leg), I felt that his condition would exempt him from serving in World War I while every other newsie would be conscripted and legally required to fight overseas. Combine that with the Spanish influenza outbreak that same year, and Crutchie's willingness to help others, and you have a poor young man who does his best to help, even though it's slowly killing him too.
> 
> I didn't write his death as a suicide, it was more of him succumbing to the effects of being around sick people all the time without proper medical care.
> 
> Comments, kudos, and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!


End file.
